U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to raise taxes to fund social care reforms and the country’s National Health Service.
Johnson laid out plans on Tuesday to increase the U.K.’s National Insurance levy by 1.25%, with taxes on shareholders also set to go up.  
The move is facing resistance from lawmakers in Johnson’s own Conservative Party, who fear a tax hike could cost votes.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, August 18, 2021.
Hannah McKay | Reuters

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to hike taxes on Tuesday to fund health care and reforms to the country’s social care system.
From April, Johnson’s government wants to introduce a new 1.25% health and social care levy on earned income across the U.K. Tax rates on shareholder dividends will increase by the same amount. It will begin as an increase on the existing National Insurance rate (a current tax on earnings) and become a separate tax on earned income in 2023.

The increased taxes will raise almost £36 billion over the next three years, according to the government, with money from the levy going directly to Britain’s health and social care systems.
The plans require approval from Parliament before they can be enshrined into law.
Speaking to lawmakers in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Johnson said it would be “wrong for me to say that we can pay for this pandemic without taking the difficult but responsible decisions about how we finance it.”
The prime minister said that because the new tax rate would be a permanent additional investment in health and social care, it would be “irresponsible” to meet the costs through more borrowing.
“Some will ask why we don’t increase income tax or capital gains tax instead. Income tax isn’t paid by businesses, so the whole burden would fall on individuals, roughly doubling the amount that the basic tax payer could expect to pay. And the total revenue from capital gains tax amounts to less than £9 billion this year,” he told politicians.

“Instead, our new levy will share the cost between individuals and businesses, and everyone will contribute according to their means. Those who earn more will pay more. And because we’re also increasing dividends tax rates, we will be asking better off business owners and investors to make a fair contribution too. In fact, the highest-earning 14% will pay around half the revenues.”
By increasing taxes by 1.25%, Johnson’s government aims to tackle crises in social care funding and National Health Service treatment waiting lists, the latter of which has spiraled amid escalating pressure on health care services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under Britain’s National Insurance scheme, workers and employers pay a levy that funds certain welfare programs like state pensions, statutory sick pay and maternity pay. People over the state pension age do not pay the levy, which effectively lowers their tax bill.
For workers earning between £797 and £4,189 a month, National Insurance payments are 12% of their earnings. Additional earnings in excess of £4,189 a month are taxed at 2%. Those payments are made on top of income tax.
England’s NHS will be given a £5.4 billion cash injection over the next six months to bolster its response to the Covid-19 crisis, the government announced on Monday. Of that funding, £1 billion will go toward reducing the treatment backlog created by the pandemic.
In August, an analysis carried out by The Nuffield Trust found that almost 1.2 million people in England were having to wait more than six months to access vital NHS services like cardiology and brain surgery.

Social care reforms

Johnson also announced on Tuesday that new social care reforms will include a cap on how much individuals pay for care during their lifetime. From October 2023, that amount will be limited to £86,000, although this may not include the price of accommodation in nursing homes.
Currently, people in England must pay for their own care if they have savings and assets of more than £23,250, meaning social care is rarely state-funded.
People who have savings and assets valued between £20,000 and £100,000 will become eligible for “some means-tested support,” a form of assistance currently only available to individuals who have assets valued between £14,250 and £23,250.
A shake-up of the country’s social care system has been long-awaited, with people often being forced to sell their homes in order to meet the costs of care.
In his first speech as prime minister in 2019, Johnson said his government would “fix the crisis in social care once and for all,” vowing to “give every older person the dignity and security they deserve.”

Backlash

However, the prime minister’s plans have been met with criticism from some lawmakers in his own Conservative Party, many of whom claim that it would break promises the party made before being elected to form a majority government.
Ahead of the country’s last general election in 2019, Johnson made a promise in the Conservative manifesto not to raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote in his column for the Sunday Express at the weekend that Johnson’s U-turn on taxes could cost the Conservatives votes. Drawing on former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s famous quote: “Read my lips: no new taxes,” Rees-Mogg argued that “voters remembered those words after President Bush had forgotten them.”
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland are also said to be concerned about the plans, as are many Conservative lawmakers who are not members of Johnson’s Cabinet, the Guardian reported.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

In this articleKMXDASHTWTRSue Bird of the Seattle Storm celebrates during the game against the Las Vegas Aces in Game Three of the WNBA Finals on October 6, 2020 at Feld Entertainment Center in Palmetto, Florida.Ned Dishman | National Basketball Association | Getty ImagesA series of CarMax advertisements featuring WNBA superstar Sue Bird, which recently went viral on social media, uses humor and misdirection to elevate female athletes who have faced decades of underrepresentation in media. Bird’s accomplishments on the court put her among the best players to ever play professional basketball.The ads — part of CarMax’s “Call Your Shot” campaign — were released earlier this month but took off on Twitter over the weekend. The spot gaining the most attention starred Bird, NBA standout Steph Curry and an actor portraying a CarMax employee who was overjoyed to sell a vehicle to an athlete of Bird’s caliber. It challenges gender bias in sports.”I think it’s setting a new standard because it has resonated so positively with so many people,” said Nancy Lough, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies sports marketing and gender equity. The commercial understands that “today’s consumer is smart,” she told CNBC. “They want to be respected. Women want to be respected, but men appreciate that [there] needs to be respect across the board.” In the ad, the CarMax associate tells Curry, “Man, if you’d have told me this morning I’d be working with a four-time champ …” Before he can finish, he’s interrupted by the Golden State Warriors guard, who believes he’s correcting the CarMax rep by saying he’s only won three league titles.”No. I sold a car to Sue Bird,” the employee says in the ad, pointing across the lot as the camera cuts to Bird, a longtime Seattle Storm guard, who is seen waving and stepping into the vehicle.”Eleven all-star appearances, can you imagine?” the salesman asks. Curry, a 33-year-old seven-time NBA all-star, responds, “I mean, I’m working on it.” The commercial has resonated on social media; in one Twitter post, the video has 1.7 million views.”This is the best ad I’ve ever seen,” tweeted Sarah Fuller, the two-sport Vanderbilt University athlete who last year became the first woman to score points in a Power 5 conference college football game.The viral moment for the CarMax ads comes as Bird’s alma mater, the University of Connecticut, plays in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament’s Final Four on Friday. The women’s games this year have enjoyed strong viewership following the rise in popularity of the WNBA in its Covid-shortened season last year. The WNBA’s 2021 season, its 25th, is expected to begin later this spring.Graham Unterberger — a senior copywriter at the Martin Agency, which worked on the CarMax campaign — said he found out that Bird was partnering with the auto retailer in the fall, around the time the Storm won the WNBA title for the fourth time.”When we saw her name, we were like, ‘This is freaking awesome. We have the best basketball player on the planet that we can write spots for,'” Unterberger said in a video call with CNBC. “After writing spots, we saw the potential to pair [Curry and Bird] together.”One reason the commercial starring Bird and Curry strikes a chord is that it places a female athlete’s career accolades firmly above those of a male athlete, Lough said.”Historically, traditionally and very commonplace today, a WNBA athlete being compared to an NBA athlete is always positioned as though the WNBA is lesser than, and, in this case, we actually get to see that flipped in a really fun and clever and novel new way,” she said.The ad is also a testament to the recognizable brand that Bird has built across her nearly two decades in the WNBA, Lough added.The No. 1 pick in the 2002 draft, Bird has spent her entire WNBA career with the Storm, recording the most assists in league history. The 40-year-old Bird is returning for the upcoming 2021 season.In the past, companies that wanted to use an athlete to help build their brand have generally just turned to male sports figures, Lough said. However, there has been a shift toward better marketing representation of female athletes, she added, pointing to tennis stars Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka as examples.Bird’s series with CarMax — which recently became the WNBA’s first-ever official auto retail partner — serves as the latest chapter of that welcome evolution, Lough said. Another instance came earlier this month, when Los Angeles Sparks forward Chiney Ogwumike, a two-time WNBA all-star and ESPN commentator, starred in a solo ad campaign for food-delivery service DoorDash. How the ‘Call Your Shot’ ads took shapeAs the creative process for the Curry-Bird ad progressed, they simply “let the one with the most rings win out,” according to Dustin Dodd, the Martin Agency’s senior art director.”I don’t know how you look at Sue Bird’s resume and not say, ‘GOAT,'” Unterberger added, using an acronym for greatest of all time. “It just is what it is.””To us, when you think about the WNBA’s rise in recent years, Sue Bird is a huge part of that history and a huge part of bringing that game forward,” he said. “She’s won championships in different decades with the same team. She’s just an icon.”Bird and Curry were never on location together to film the commercial, Dodd said. Bird was in Connecticut, while Curry was in California. The video shoots also took place weeks apart. “We just had to cobble it together the best way possible, and luckily it’s resonated with people,” he said.In another one of the six ads in the series starring Bird, she tells the actor representing a CarMax associate her middle name is “Buckets” — a basketball slang term — after being asked for that bit of info to complete a sales form. Following seconds of awkward silence, she tells him, “Nah, it’s Brigit.”Another centers around CarMax delivering a purchased vehicle directly to Bird’s home. She relays the gate password to the employee over an intercom letter by letter, and viewers find out the entrance code spells out “GOAT.”Unterberger said he’s appreciated the conversation the ads featuring Bird have sparked around boosting representation of female athletes, suggesting other companies should take note. “It’s not just WNBA fans. It’s not just NBA fans. It’s blossomed into this bigger thing, and I think that alone should prove that this is a worthy endeavor,” he said.The commercials gained traction online as the women’s and men’s college basketball tournaments were entering their later rounds and disparities in accommodations at the two NCAA tournaments — particularly around weight room equipment and different types of Covid tests — were sharply criticized earlier this month.Lough said she thought both the widespread condemnation of the tournament inequities and the positive response to the CarMax ads with Bird were significant in their own ways when it comes to advancing gender equity in athletics.”We’ve had waves of attention in women’s sports,” she added, recalling the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta when the U.S. women’s soccer team won the gold medal. “But right now, it’s different.””This is a wave of momentum that has been building for some time,” she said, “and quite honestly, I don’t see it stopping, and that’s new.” More

City-Scape Landscaping, a family-run operation based in Queens, installs 120 fir trees shipped from Nova Scotia along Park Avenue for almost 50 blocks.
Park Avenue has been a key part of the company’s business since 1972, City-Scape’s owners said.
The Park Avenue Christmas tree project brings in $100,000 a year for City-Scape.

NEW YORK – The prestigious Park Avenue neighborhood has a small business to thank for bringing holiday cheer to its streets year after year.
City-Scape Landscaping, a family-run operation based in Queens, installs 120 fir trees shipped from Nova Scotia, Canada, along the avenue for almost 50 blocks, from 49th to 97th streets.

The business has maintained the avenue’s grassy medians – known as the Park Avenue Malls – for 50 years. A crew of six to seven City-Scape employees positions the fir trees. The company brings in more than $1 million in annual sales from all its clients, according to Experian Business Data. The fir tree process accounts for close to $100,000 of that a year.
Park Avenue has been a key part of the company’s business since 1972, City-Scape’s owners said, helping pay salaries and keep families fed.
City-Scape Landscaping started when late owner Vincent Sofield’s older brothers, Joe and Duke Sofield, were hired by their neighbor Peter Van de Wetering — “the unrivaled tulip impresario of Park Avenue” — to help his team plant and maintain the malls, Vincent said.

Christmas tress installed by City-Scape Landscaping on Park Avenue in New York.

Shortly thereafter, Van de Wetering moved to Long Island to start Van de Wetering Greenhouses, which continues to keep the avenue lush with tulips and seasonal flora. He passed off mall maintenance permanently to the Sofields, and City-Scape was in business.
“I don’t think Park Avenue would have quite the same glamour if the median walls weren’t in place,” said Vincent Sofield’s son, Dylan. “I think it really creates a good contrast with the concrete jungle — kind of softens your eyes up a little bit, makes it less aggressive.”

A half-century later, City-Scape is keeping the business in the family. After becoming a co-owner earlier this year, 26-year-old Dylan is taking over the operation in the wake of his father’s recent passing.
“A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them I own the company,” he told CNBC earlier this year. “They ask for the boss, and I say, ‘You’re looking at him.’ But they quickly lose that once they realize I know what I am talking about.”
Sofield said he has played a role in the business since he was young, not because he had to, but because he “always wanted to be involved.”
“I was probably pulling a rake before I could walk,” he joked.
Despite the avenue’s high profile, Sofield said he has felt unphased by it because it is “all he knew” growing up. But as he has gotten older, he now recognizes that Park Avenue is not just any landscaping job.
“It’s definitely something to be proud of,” Sofield said. “I see my work all over the place, TV, Instagram. I will be scrolling and think, ‘Oh, there’s my tulips,’ or ‘There’s my lawn.'”

Dylan Sofield, owner of City-Scape Landscaping.

For most of the year, City-Scape tends to the malls every Monday ahead of high traffic weekdays. Crews weed, mow the lawns and hedges, remove debris, water the plants and repair damaged wood barriers.
The company is hired by the Fund for Park Avenue — the neighborhood nonprofit responsible for the malls — to maintain the green spaces year-round.
The malls change by the season: tulips in the spring, begonias in the summer, chrysanthemums in the fall and temporary fir trees in the winter.
“It’s people’s front yard, front gardens along Park Avenue,” said the group’s president, Barbara McLaughlin. “So everyone who’s lucky enough to live on Park Avenue really enjoys it every day, but also, it’s a wonderful place to walk and it’s enjoyed by a lot of people.”
The trees are lit up at the annual Park Avenue tree lighting at Brick Presbyterian Church, an event that drew 4,000 people this year, a church spokesperson said.

Christmas tress installed by City-Scape Landscaping on Park Avenue in New York.

“It’s such an intimate event for New York City,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a neighborhood event, neighborhood feel, but all are welcome.”
The trees will be taken down in mid-January.
“We’d love to have them stay longer, but they’re not planted,” McLaughlin said. “These trees are installed temporarily, so they do get dry.”
And as the trees mark the changing of seasons, they also mark a season of change for City-Scape. It was Dylan Sofield’s first holiday tree installation running the business without his father.
“I still have the help of my family,” he said. “My uncle is still around, and he’s been doing this for 50 years; he’s not going anywhere.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

US Senator Kelly Loeffler (L), R-GA, and husband Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, on January 6, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia on Wednesday said that she and her CEO husband Jeff Sprecher will liquidate their individual stock share positions and […] More

“Always be hustlin’, ” was the credo of Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former boss of Uber. That mindset helped turn the company into the world’s largest ride-hailing platform, with operations in more than 70 countries and 10,000 cities. Its name has now become a commonly used verb. But while Uber hustled, investors had to be patient. Although founded 16 years ago, it first turned an annual operating profit only in 2023. Disrupting personal transport while fighting legal battles over flouted regulations and weathering sexual-harassment scandals proved tremendously costly. More